According to the US, chemical weapons have been used especially against Ukrainian fortified positions. Russia denies the accusations.
According to the US, Russia is using banned chemical weapons in the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine has already said in the past that Russia has fired, among other things, tear gas at Ukrainian positions.
According to the United States In addition to tear gas, the Russian troops have used, among other things, chloropicrin, which is used as an insecticide, in battles.
Russia denies the use of prohibited weapons
Russia has signed the Chemical Weapons Convention. The Kremlin denies that Russia used banned weapons.
According to Russia, it does not possess chemical weapons intended for military use, but the last of them were destroyed in 2017.
On the other hand, for example, tear gas is not a prohibited substance in itself.
However, its use in warfare is prohibited by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons According to the OPCW.
Chloropicrin, which suppresses breathing, is also among the prohibited substances. The substance was used as a combat gas in the First World War.
The first claims already in 2022
Earlier in the spring, the Ukrainian armed forces noticed that Russia is using, among other things, tear gas in attacks on Ukrainian positions.
– Russia has used various gases used against demonstrators. The soldiers have had eye symptoms, vomiting and dizziness, said the colonel Serhii Pakhomov news agency Reuters.
According to the US State Department, Russia has used chemical weapons in particular to evict Ukrainian soldiers from fortified positions on the front.
The first Ukrainian accusations about the use of Russian chemical weapons came already in the battles of Mariupol in the spring of 2022. According to the Ukrainian defenders of the city, Russian troops had spread an unknown chemical substance from a drone.
The use of chemical weapons is familiar from Syria
The most famous example of the large-scale use of chemical weapons in recent years is well known to Russia.
Russian patronage of the Syrian president of Bashar al-Assad the regime used chemical weapons in several attacks, according to the UN and human rights organizations. The attacks were significantly more violent than the cases reported in Ukraine now.
In 2017, in the city of Khan Sheikhoun, about 100 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack. According to UN war crimes investigators Assad regime was responsible attack and several other similar attacks.
In Russian propaganda, the connection to Ukraine
The Russian state media produced several alternative theories about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the central message of which was that the Syrian regime was not responsible.
In the case of the Khan Sheikhoun attack, there was even an alleged connection to Ukraine. Russian Ministry of Defense Zvezda TV channel claimed that Ukraine had supplied chemical weapons to the rebels.
As the war in Ukraine began, activists are following the war in Syria evaluated, that the Syrian example could inspire Russia to use chemical weapons in Ukraine as well. The Syrian regime has gotten away with using banned weapons with impunity.